Fears mount for woman suspected of helping inmate escape

STOCKTON - Family and friends of Erica Munoz, suspected of helping the man accused of trying to kill her escape Monday from County Jail, have expressed fear for her safety.

Michelle Machado

STOCKTON - Family and friends of Erica Munoz, suspected of helping the man accused of trying to kill her escape Monday from County Jail, have expressed fear for her safety.

"I don't think that she'll come home alive," her mother, Pam Munoz of Stockton, said Thursday.

Pam Munoz last spoke with her daughter around 1 a.m. Tuesday, hours after Erica Munoz helped her boyfriend escape. Pam Munoz asked her daughter to come home, and heard her say, "OK," but the response indicated more fear than promise, she said.

Relatives and friends all repeated the same story of Erica Munoz's downward spiral after she met Eric Hu, 32, nearly two years ago.

"From the day she met him, she has gone downhill. None of us could reach her," Pam Munoz said of her 35-year-old daughter.

Christina Perez of Stockton said she has known Erica Munoz for 22 years.

"We saw each other every day," Perez said. "We talked five times a day."

But their exchanges grew less frequent and more disturbing after Munoz began to date Hu.

In November 2005, a tearful and black-eyed Erica Munoz confessed to Perez that she was being physically abused by Hu.

"Each time she called, it was worse than the last time," Perez said of the escalating violence in Erica Munoz's life.

Perez recalled Munoz arriving at her door late last year with her pockets full of tufts of her own hair that Hu had pulled from her head.

Just before Christmas, Erica Munoz jumped from the car Hu was driving to avoid getting punched. But a wheel caught her arm, sending her to the hospital.

The once-close friends continued to drift apart, Perez said. "I told her, 'You're not the person I knew,'" she said.

But Hu's recipe for control - a mixture of repentance, rage and retaliation - was strong.

In February, he fired a gun at Munoz as she ran from the parked car in which they had been arguing over finances.

Six weeks after Hu's Feb. 28 arrest on a charge of attempted murder in that incident, Munoz is suspected to have driven Hu away from the jail's minimum-security Honor Farm.

Hu also faces kidnapping and weapons charges. Hu was in a courthouse holding cell with Christopher Montano, a co-defendant in another case, waiting for transport back to the County Jail. The two, who are friends and are similar in appearance, changed Hu's orange County Jail jumpsuit for Montano's blue Honor Farm coveralls and jumpsuit.

That allowed Hu to arrive at the Honor Farm, which he left in a maroon 1996 Dodge minivan, California license plate number 3RRW324.

Erica Munoz's actions can be explained in the context of domestic violence, said Joelle Gomez, director of the Women's Center of San Joaquin County.

"You do things that don't make sense to the normal person," she said.

Over time, psychological and physical violence take their toll, leading victims to suffer low self-worth, and their value becomes vested in the abuser.

This is the second high-profile case in San Joaquin County this year purportedly involving a victim of domestic violence.

Jennifer Bushnell, a 29-year-old woman found shot to death in February at a San Joaquin County gas station, was threatened by her boyfriend, suspect David Brian Bernal, four days earlier, her family reported.

Munoz's family and friends hope the outcome in her case is better.

"We just want her safe return," Pam Munoz said.

Deputy Dave Konecny, a Sheriff's Office spokesman, said the search for Munoz and Hu is continuing.

Anyone with information on the whereabouts of Erica Munoz or Hu, who is considered dangerous, is asked to phone 911 or sheriff's Detective Rex Yturri at (209) 468-4400 .